NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21277, 2 September 1932, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS

USE OF LEISURE Speaking on "The Christian observance of Sunday," the Rev. F. W. Lofthouse, of Manchester, said that the greatest institution which guaranteed the right use of leisure was the Christian Sunday. "There, was a time when it might have seemed rather absurd to talk about the use of leisure. The question then was how to secure a reasonable amount of Jeisuro for the workers, but leisure—for better or for worse—has been growing, and the situation to-day is very different." They could not drivepeoplo to church any more than they could whip them into virtue or bludgeon them into the Kingdom of God, and they could not by legislation impose upon them their own Christian beliefs. Yet there was much they could do for the right keeping of Sunday in the community. What the Church must do for the community was to form in its own mind an ideal of what Sunday for the community ought to be. There were guiding principles. Sunday must be for the community as much a day of rest as practicable, and a day of re-creation of the powers of body, mind and soul—re-creation, not recreation.

THE ESSENTIAL "MIDDLE-MAN 0 Speaking on "The Need for a Merchant Voice," at. a conference of the Merchants' Association of the United Kingdom, Sir Ernest Benn, Bt., said it seemed to him that the movement to get together the merchant class and to express the merchant voice came at the right moment, for he believed that things had touched ( bottom and were slowly on the mend. The merchant salesman, retailer, jobber —in fact, "middleman" class generally—had gone to a discount during his lifetime owing to the follies of political discussion. The "middle-man" class he likened to the gear-box of a bicycle, without which the machine could not function adequately or up do its capacity. "The middle-man is a factor for economy. and not a source of expense," ho said, "and that in a natural market has always and must always be true." All his life he had been told that such troubles as did exist were due to the capitalistic system; he had not heard that story so often repeated during recent years, and there was almost unanimity of opinion that the mess in which the world stood was due to the actions of Governments, and the recognition of that fact seemed to him to be pregnant of hope for the future. Usually when it was said "something must be done," it was meant that some political thing must be undone, and it was along that road that in.his opinion they should find prosperity; "We got into trouble," he said, '-'because the 'middleman' in the legislative forces got too much in command of the situation. We should only get out of trouble by putting those people into their proper places and reinstating in the centre of the picture the true merchant class." THE PURPOSE OF GAMES "Games and out-of-school activities" formed the subject of a discussion at the annual congress of the International Federation of Associations of Secondary Teachers. Mr. H. Ramsbotham, Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education, said the proper purposo of games in the schools was to produce healthy, fit and active boys and girls, full of the joy of effort for its own sake; and to cultivate in them the qualities of the good citizen. The finest games for schools were those which required not only high skill, but which called for individual effort as an element in the coriibination and team work of the side as a whole, and which also contained the possibility of the player getting hurt. Parents might think that a brutal doctrine to come from an educationist, but Rugby football was not a gentle game an 3 all who played it would agree that it was the finest school game in existence, because it called for high individual skill and courage, fair play and combination. Let them beware of the cant of games. They knew that it was team work that was the m.erit of games, but they also knew that, although the poor performer might often get much enjoyment from playing, it was the star performer who got most of the fun. How many of them would, in their heart of hearts, prefer to make a "duck" for the winning side to scoring a century for the losers ? Team games strengthened the quality of unselfishness, but the effect on character which was caused by individual excellence at games was very dubious. .Individual excellence at games might lead to the foolish cult of athletic hero-worship. It was a task for the educator in England to-day to popularise the doctrine that the cricketer at the top of the batting averages was not really so important a man as the Prime Minister. It was not the business of the schools to act as hothouses for forcing up international champions. Our future athletic champions would spring naturally from good work done in the schools, and they might or might not have the time and opportunity to become international champions. It did not much matter. Let them hope that at least they would not become whole-time Amateur lawn tennis players. . Ho hoped also that the schools would never lend themselves to publicity for their athlotics in the press. There was far too much of it already. The press was entirely to blame for the childish interest which was taken in records and averages by grown-up children of all. ages.